


Blood or Rust?

by Carrie George (YourSpinsterAunt)



Series: Why We Fight [3]
Category: Old Time Radio
Genre: Cigarettes, Forests, Gen, Rust, Shadows - Freeform, abandoned houses, gravel, mold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourSpinsterAunt/pseuds/Carrie%20George
Summary: Agatha has come into possession of a dilapidated house, deep in the overgrown tangle of an abandoned neighborhood. It appears that no one has lived there for years, but there are a few things about the whole situation that do not add up.





	Blood or Rust?

In the areas closer to the town, the wilderness had been kept at bay with chemicals and machines, but around the outer city limits where the corn fields began and the driveways were gravel the woods had slowly and silently retaken their keep.

So the little house was further off the road than it had been forty years ago. None of the nearby house numbers had residents attached to them; the lights in those houses did not go on at night.

Agatha drove carefully around the potholes, glancing at her crudely-drawn map. She missed the turn the first time and had to double back before turning into the grassy drive. It had been gravel at one time, but the forest was swallowing it up too.

The front door was overgrown with ivy and the step slippery with moss, but Agatha didn’t even attempt it, letting the car crawl towards the back of the house at a slow rate to minimize the damage to her battered vehicle. Rust encumbered the lock on the back door, but the whole contraption was hanging on one hinge so it only took her a few shoves with her shoulder to break it open.

Instead of the cloud of dust she expected, a smell of mold and wood decay greeted her from the inner rooms of the house. The air felt thick and wet. Even the inside of the windows looked purposefully bleary with yellow stains. Something clicked in her mind and she thought of the teeth of nicotine smokers; even in the dank atmosphere she could identify the smell of stale cigarette smoke.

She tried flipping a nearby light switch.

A dim yellow glow emanated from an unshaded bulb hung from a single wire in the middle of the ceiling. The room she entered was a small kitchen. There was a table underneath the lamp and around it huddled a tiny stove, a giant farmhouse sink, a refrigerator, and an enormous hoosier cabinet that went all the way up to the ceiling.

“Well, golly gee willikers-malloy.”

On the other side of the table yawned a black doorway and on the floor was a dark stain.


End file.
